August 13, 2013

Another View

The other day, Brickmuppet Blog commented upon Elon Musk's Hyperloop concept. This article takes a 180 degree different view of his business model from ours.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg strongly disagrees with the characterization of Musk as a corporatist at least as far as Space-X is concerned. Space-X does seem to be rather different from Tesla in that it's paying it's own way and not getting vast piles of taxpayer money as loans and subsidies plus government mandated payments from his competition. I was probably wrong to not put that venture in the same category as Paypal.
Still...
The huge ammount of political shenanigans he's engaged in to get his Car and solar panel company to float should give one pause. Dr. Simberg's argument is that if the government offered him a dump-truck full of our money it would be a breach of fiduciary duty not to accept it. This is true to an extent, depending on the strings attached, but given that at least 2 of his ventures seem to be quite nonviable economically without the government subsidies one can rationally wonder about whether a mass transit system (a type of venture with a poor history of viability in this country) is not a boondoggle.

August 06, 2013

Of All The Days

As Steven reminds us in the comments of a previous post, the Japanese, earlier today, launched the latest and largest of their 'Destroyers'. We've discussed this nomenclature issue recently. However, it's important to remember that a nations warships are not just tools to be used in desperate times, they are symbols that can send messages.

Because the international dateline can lead to some confusion on dates, I just checked and yes indeed, when the vessel was launched it was Tuesday in Japan.

1
Somehow, I think you don't mean "because it's the Feast of the Transfiguration." However, it sounds like there's also a message to the Russians and the Brits and the Chinese and us, re: Wikipedia's section on her namesake ship:

"In the Battle off Ulsan on 14 August 1904, six Japanese cruisers defeated the Russian cruiser squadron, sinking Rurik, and severely damaging Rossia and Gromoboi. During the battle, Izumo was hit more than 20 times, and suffered from two crewmen killed...During the crucial Battle of Tsushima on 26 May 1905 Izumo continued to serve as Kamimura’s flagship, taking nine hits during the battle, with 34 crewmen killed."

Izumo served honorably in WWI, but its record in WWII was a lot more memorable to certain parties:

"Designated as flagship... during the Japanese invasion of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Izumo was attacked during the Battle of Shanghai by a Chinese torpedo boat, which it sank. Izumo was also attacked on 14 August 1937 by Chinese Air Force aircraft led by Captain (later Major General) Claire Lee Chennault. During the attack, his floatplane was shot down.

Still in Shanghai after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor at about 0400 on 8 December 1941, Izumo opened fire on the United States Navy gunboat USS Wake, forcing its surrender, and sank the Royal Navy gunboat HMS Peterel* (whose crew refused to surrender). This was one of the first combat actions of the Pacific War following Pearl Harbor."

* "At the time she was acting as a communications station manned only by a skeleton crew." Her commanding officer was a "temporary lieutenant," even.

Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Sun Aug 11 08:07:16 2013 (cvXSV)

2
Of course, the name would seem to be a reference to Izumo-taisha, possibly the most important Shinto shrine in Japan. Legend has it that it was built for Okuninushi as a sort of quid pro quo or covenantal thing, in exchange for Okuninushi giving Japan to Amaterasu's grandson who'd just come down from heaven to pacify Japan's monsters and father emperors. So basically, it's the spiritual foundation of imperial rule.

So yeah, absolutely no belligerence there. Noopers.

Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Sun Aug 11 08:20:57 2013 (cvXSV)

3
Of course, if I had China and North Korea in my backyard, and if Obama were giving me the impression that allies were for ignoring or undermining, I'd be wanting a big ol' carrier/destroyer too. And I might feel like sending out some messages that I felt the old agreements to protect Japan, from after WWII, had been broken by the US.

August 01, 2013

A Question For My Readers

Is this creepy?

Wait.

You'll need context....allow me to explain......

Last night Instapundit linked to an Amazon.com page for 'Zombie Apocalypse Supplies'. OK This was silly, so I sent the link to Wonderduck in part to let him know that Snowflake Village is overrun by zombjas...but that is not germane to the matter at hand.

Anyway, a bit later, he and I exchanged multiple IMs trying to figure out what a compression bag was and speculating about the 5 gallon tub 'o meals which advertised 300 odd servings but gave not the slightest indication what they were servings of...or how over 300 'satisfying meals' would fit in a 5 gallon pail. Anyway after sending each other links to various amusing zombie survivalist inanities, we logged off shortly thereafter.

Which brings us to this screencap.....

...and this one....

All of a sudden the Amazon affiliated blogs I'm visiting are very interested in selling me tubs o' food and stuff. So I ask my readers. Especially those who did not spend 20 minutes last night snarking on the zombie apocalypse page....Is this just the Amazon putsch of the moment or are they really tracking us that close? What are YOU seeing on Amazon affiliated sites?

If this turns out not to be creepy and you are feeling cheated by the lack of creepiness, then rest assured gentle reader there is still creepiness to be had....more...